I'm a Main Street business evangelist and marketing veteran with over 25 years in the trenches, and I write about small business financing as an employee at OnDeck and also at Forbes. I try to make the maze of small business finance accessible by weaving personal experiences and other anecdotes into a regular discussion around one of the biggest challenges facing small business today. The opinions expressed are my own and not those of OnDeck.

3 Reasons Why the Customer Isn't Always Right

Cutting my small business teeth behind the wheel of a delivery truck, my Dad used to tell me, “For many of our customers, you’re the only person from our company they’ll see on a regular basis. Remember, the customer is always right; never argue with them and do your best to make sure they are happy before you leave.”

I tried to practice that philosophy throughout my career; after all Dad is always right, right? Unfortunately Dad isn’t always right and neither is the customer. Let me tell you why:

Customers really aren’t always sure what they want and many times we don’t do a good job of uncovering what they really need: I’m a huge fan of how Genyo Takeda and his team developed the Nintendo Wii. I’m not what you would call a gamer and a game station wasn’t really on my list of things I needed to have, but for some reason it was on my wife’s. I think it’s because Takeda took an unconventional approach to building the Wii and came up with a gaming consul that even non-gamers (like my wife) could appreciate.

“This may sound paradoxical, but if we had followed the existing road-maps we would have aimed to make it ‘faster and flashier’,” said Takeda. “In other words, we would have tried to improve the speed at which it displays stunning graphics. But we could not help but ask ourselves, ‘How big an impact would that direction really have on our customers?”

Takeda suggested that had they continued down that path, they would have created another PlayStation and my wife (like millions of others) would have never purchased a Wii. Some of the changes he made were very basic. For starters, he replaced the gaming control with a wand that more naturally mimicked the way people really moved. In fact, I think that’s what really appealed to my wife. The Wii didn’t require her to get used to the way the controller worked. If you were driving a car in Mario Kart, you used something that looked like a steering wheel. If you were playing tennis or baseball, you swung a racket or a bat. It was pretty straightforward to her. The simple nature of the graphics seemed to make our Wii something we pull out at parties to interact with each other rather than sequester ourselves in some kind of first-person roll-playing game in an elaborate digital world. The community or physically interactive nature of the game was a real departure from other video games. It didn’t require a LAN party or internet connection to have fun with your friends on the Wii.

Takeda changed the world of video games not by asking his customers what they wanted, but by watching how they interacted with each other and games generally, and then applied it to building a new platform with a revolutionary approach to video games.

I think the same is true for our customers. We need to uncover what our customers really want because they often can’t think out of their current paradigm to consider something new or revolutionary. Had Takeda asked the gaming community of the time if they would buy the Wii, they would have likely said, “No.” Takeda was able to uncover something that would resonate and fill the need of an entirely new market while adding many traditional gamers to the list of Wii customers.

If customers don’t know the answer, they make it up: I found this hard to believe when I first heard this, but according to Steven Pinker and some pretty interesting research he outlines in his book, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, if we don’t know the answer, we make it up. In a nutshell, different parts of the brain process information differently. When patients without a connection between the brain halves (some people are born with this condition and it’s a treatment for others with rare neurological maladies) are asked questions, if one side of the brain didn’t know the answer and couldn’t communicate with the other side, it would make one up.

This is relevant to us because subconsciously, if we don’t know the answer to a question like, “Do you prefer the red package or the blue package?” we make it up. This is the problem with reliance on customer feedback. Although it might be unintentional, human nature compels us to provide an appropriate answer (even if it’s not true). Focus groups (or asking your customers) might be a good data point, but the human propensity to make stuff up makes those opinions unreliable.

There are numerous marketing anecdotes lamenting products that failed miserably after exhausting focus group research. The only way to really tell what you’re customers will do is not to ask, but to give them a choice and watch them choose.

Customer expectations are not always rational: In fairness, sometimes we allow, and even facilitate unrealistic expectations with our customers. Spinning the real story about a product or service to make it sound sexier than it really is sets up the situation for an unhappy customer down the road. A few years back I picked up Darrell Huff’s book, How to Lie with Statistics, and have since become a real skeptic of the “data” most marketing cites to make their products look good.

Marketers and sales people are accused of doing this all the time, but politicians have made it an art form. I don’t think it matters on which side of the aisle they sit, I only trust half of the statistics they cite. Most of the time politicians will, for the short-term gain of an election, twist and manipulate the truth to suit their needs. Hence, at the beginning of every election cycle there are folks who feel that they were mislead by the promises made by the guy or gal trying to get re-elected.

Even considering all the blame we probably deserve, some customers will have unrealistic expectations no matter what we do. Some of our customers hear what they want to hear and have unrealistic expectations without any of our help at all. “I thought the fertilizer you put on my lawn would have killed all the weeds in 24 hours!” “My car doesn’t get 10 more miles per gallon after the tune-up you just charged me $200 for, I want my money back!” OR, “This new suit didn’t get me the job I just interviewed for!”

There have been many times over the course of my career when I’ve had to sit across the desk or on the other end of the phone with a customer who had unrealistic expectations. It’s never easy and there are even those who have made it a matter of course to complain knowing that most of us will eventually cave and give them an additional discount or something free to placate them. In that sense, I’ve remained true to my Father’s direction to always try to keep the customer happy. However, I also have to admit that I’ve grumbled under my beard at a number of customers and their unrealistic expectations.

Those companies that look beyond what their customers say or what they ask for and spend the time to discover what they really need seem to be the businesses that really succeed. If you’ve experienced this in your business, please share your experiences here.

Is the customer always right? Nope. Does that mean we don’t have to work like crazy to keep our customers happy? What do you think?

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The best one I heard was “the reasonable customer is always right”. But that generally applies to customers who already have (or want) your product or service. When it comes to “the future”, most people have no clue what they will actually want. It’s like “good art”: they’ll know it when they see it, but can’t describe it to you in advance.

You typically can’t invent new product with focus groups and market surveys. They might help you improve something you already have. But inventing something new? Not likely to happen.

You’re absolutely right, focus groups and market surveys fall short because we can’t predict what we’ll do in any given situation. The only way to really know is to give people a choice, watch them make it, and count how many people did what. Short of that, it’s all just a “best guess” at best.

Ty, I mean no disrespect, however your comment sounds like we should all just rely on trial and error. I Believe in training, fact finding, overcoming objections, product knowledge, answer anticipation and customer service. This is a short list of skills a good salesperson possesses and great salespeople go far beyond these skills. We are all restricted by deadlines, budget constraints and fierce competition. The people who stand out and make the difference have the training and the skills and the determination to use them! That gives give them a competitive edge and that is what drives the markets.

I have been in sales since “The customer is always right” was the mantra! The number of times I agreed with that statement is minuscule. Salespeople have never had a good reputation and in today’s fast pace, high stress work environments that’s not getting any better. Where once we dealt with customers who were under informed, we now deal with customers who are on information overload! Salespeople are largely under trained and highly aggressive which doesn’t make a good combination. Customer service is not a high priority in many companies where sales are Internet driven and face-to-face interaction is minimal. In many companies it’s all about getting the sale now so your numbers will be high enough to keep you on the payroll for another month. I belong to several sales groups and the experts among us talk about asking the right questions but don’t know the difference between open-ended questions and closed-ended questions. One such expert recently used the term “Information Exploration” a fancy terminology for what we once just called fact finding. Whatever your terminology or your mind set, if you don’t find out what the customer needs and know if you have it and can provide it in a way that benefits that customer then you will be the epitome of the saying “Two wrongs don’t make a right”! Then we can add a fourth reason to the content of this article!

My name is Wayne Miller, I am a motivated and skilled marketing executive with extensive management, sales and customer service experience. I do customer service and sales training, advertising and business consulting. I can be reached through my website.~ Affilipede where people who want to make money on the Internet come to learn how! ~ http://www.affilipede.com/

Wayne, thanks for commenting. I’m not suggesting trial and error. I’m suggesting that we take focus groups or market research and treat them as a data point, create a best guess and then test. We will only find out what choices our customers will really make by giving them a choice, watching them make it, and then adding up the results. I think it’s a lot more scientific than just leaving things up to chance.

So far as your assessment of the current situation of sales people and their level of training, etc. I think that depends upon the organization and the individual salesperson. Nevertheless, I stand by the assertion that the customer isn’t always right, but it’s not really their fault. To a large degree, we haven’t done our job to set the right expectations and discover what it is that our customers really want.

I have been in sales since “The customer is always right” was the mantra! The number of times I agreed with that statement is minuscule. Salespeople have never had a good reputation and in today’s fast pace, high stress work environments that’s not getting any better. Where once we dealt with customers who were under informed, we now deal with customers who are on information overload! Salespeople are largely under trained and highly aggressive which doesn’t make a good combination. Customer service is not a high priority in many companies where sales are Internet driven and face-to-face interaction is minimal. In many companies it’s all about getting the sale now so your numbers will be high enough to keep you on the payroll for another month. I belong to several sales groups and the experts among us talk about asking the right questions but don’t know the difference between open-ended questions and closed-ended questions. One such expert recently used the term “Information Exploration” a fancy terminology for what we once just called fact finding. Whatever your terminology or your mind set, if you don’t find out what the customer needs and know if you have it and can provide it in a way that benefits that customer then you will be the epitome of the saying “Two wrongs don’t make a right”! Then we can add a fourth reason to the content of this article!

My name is Wayne Miller, I am a motivated and skilled marketing executive with extensive management, sales and customer service experience. I do customer service and sales training, advertising and business consulting. I can be reached through my website.~ Affilipede where people who want to make money on the Internet come to learn how! ~ http://www.affilipede.com/

Ty, I mean no disrespect, however your comment sounds like we should all just rely on trial and error. I Believe in training, fact finding, overcoming objections, product knowledge, answer anticipation and customer service. This is a short list of skills a good salesperson possesses and great salespeople go far beyond these skills. We are all restricted by deadlines, budget constraints and fierce competition. The people who stand out and make the difference have the training and the skills and the determination to use them! That gives give them a competitive edge and that is what drives the markets.

My name is Wayne Miller, I am a motivated and skilled marketing executive with extensive management, sales and customer service experience. I do customer service and sales training, advertising and business consulting. I can be reached through my website.~ Affilipede where people who want to make money on the Internet come to learn how! ~ http://www.affilipede.com/

Marvelous! I love this article and have been saying this for years. In AXA Philippines we therefore have selected the tag line “We give you what you need” and you can imagine the number of times I had to defend this as many tried to convince me that we should give customers what they want. From making all those, mostly empty, promises we have moved on, look realistically at the clients needs and his capabilities to pay and offer solution that fit. Not to retire with a cocktail in their hands watching the sunset every day on a white beach, but just to make ends meet and be independent also in their retirement years.

It’s counter-intuitive, but customers often present a problem for us to provide a product or service to solve, but they don’t often know what the solution might be. It’s difficult to step outside of their current paradigm to see if there are alternatives to what might appear to be the obvious answer. The Wii is a great example of thinking outside the box with a product that did its job so well it even created an entirely new market.

I’m convinced that a huge challenge faced by most of us, is determining the real customer need. It reminds me of my early days in the industrial business, a customer might come into the shop asking for a drill, but what he or she really needed was a hole. Our job is to figure out what they really need and fill that need, even if it’s something that might be different than what they’re asking for.

4- If they abuse my employees they are not right. I recently enjoyed telling one of our jerk customers who verbally abused 5 of my employees where to go… right to my main competition! Now I rarely do anything like this, I love my customers, until they become unloveable….

One of my favorite calls I have ever had. And I celebrated by telling all 140 employees what happened in a company meeting.

Ken, fortunately most of the people we work with are courteous and considerate of our employees, but on rare occasions, most small business owners are faced with a real jerk. And, sometimes the best thing to do is to just say, “Goodbye.”

I once worked with a guy who said, “We will work neither for nor with [expletive deleted].” In all the time I’ve known him, he has been true to this mantra. I once witnessed him “firing” a vendor who said something demeaning to the receptionist. It was that important to him. But that’s probably a topic for another discussion.

A prospect become a customer when the saleperson finds a way to bridge the gap between the reasonable expectations of the prospect and the service and or product you represent. Often, if you satisfy an unreasonable request, you do not have a business transaction, you have a charitable donation. There is a difference between uncover a true need of the prospect and waisting your time.

One of the best quotes I ever heard was from a friend, Peter Clegg, who works most recently at HireVu: “It’s only business, and we’re all doing our best.” I’ve thought about that statement a million times since. Thinking about it in that light generally makes it easier to determine the right thing to do, and easier to get through it when the right thing feels really unfair.

I have to chime in, although my words may not be eloquent, but they are true. Working on the front lines every single day you get to see that we have become a demaning greedy society. Each time my phone rings I dread what this person will demand because they are a customer, they work and it’s their money. I would love to remind them that I’m not volunteering for their abuse, because like them I work. And as a worker bee, I don’t (unfortunately) make the rules. However I do get to be the bad guy, and have to be the one to disappoint the almighty dollar yielding customer. When something goes wrong, and you reach out to customer service remember that person may not have caused your issue, but they are the worker bee and most likely can be your most useful resource and may care about finding a resolution for you, until you sling an insult, and after that all bets are off. Good luck after that!

Hello, and thank you so much for writing this article! I am a small business owner, and I struggle with this on a daily basis. Because of the nature of my business, there are many that come into my shop, and expect me to speak with them and give them advice for free — in essence, they often use me as a cheap/free therapist. I am fine with this, as long as purchases are made, however, often this is not the case. Finally, yesterday, I decided to put my foot down when a “repeat offender” came in with a flute that she had recently purchased, and demanded that I give her a free lesson. Well, I don’t play the flute – I know how to play scales, so I can demonstrate them to my customers, but I am a singer, not a flute player. I told her that I do not teach flute, but if I choose to one day, I will hold lessons, and have a set charge for them. She began to scream at me that I was unfair and deserved to lose my business, then went to my doorway, and began to scream out into the front “THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT! THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!” All I could say was “I hope you enjoy your flute, but you are no longer welcome here. Have a nice day.” (Actually, this is the case that prompted me to look up other stories and articles by small business owners.) Now…I make every effort to make my customers happy, and I never spin unrealistic stories – but occasionally I have a case like this that leaves me shaken. The most common complaint, is that people want discounts…for no reason. What is there to do in cases like these, where the customer is being borderline violent? Or what can be done when customers ask for discounts on a daily basis? These are unrealistic expectations, but the customers see them as being within reason.